My Russian Nightmare (4 page)

He takes a step back and I can breathe a little easier. I’m not sure what just happened. I didn’t feel threatened by him. Not at all. It was something else. Something I never felt from a guy before. It’s the feeling that he wants me. Really wants me, with his entire being.

Dima’s still staring, and I have a hard time swallowing. The look on his face has changed with a little distance between us. His expression is blank again and I can’t read him at all.

I convince myself that whatever I thought a moment ago is wrong. He’s the bad guy keeping me from my brother and holding me hostage. This isn’t a movie and he isn’t some hero in disguise, no matter how bad I want him to be.

Dima pulls his phone from his pocket and lifts it to his ear. Once again he’s speaking in that language I don’t understand. It’s becoming more familiar, and I’m sure I know what it is now. He hangs up, and his jaw is tense, his forehead crinkled. He doesn’t look happy.

“Were you speaking Russian?”

He nods and grabs my right hand hard. I tremble, both because I’m frightened at the swiftness and strength behind the movement, and from the touch itself. He releases a breath and eases his grip.

“I’m sorry, but I need to do this.” He won’t look at me while he restrains my hand once again.

I hold the other up to him before he even asks as a show of good faith. He shakes his head. “No. It’s okay. Just finish.”

I look down at the piece of bagel I’m still holding. I’ve devoured most of it. I pop the last of it into my mouth right before there is a knock at the door.

“Behave.” He gives me a hard warning look before leaving me alone to let our “company” in.

Chapter 4

I expected the other men to return, but the voice I hear trailing in from beyond the door isn’t a man’s voice. It’s a woman’s. The slightest flicker of hope lights in my heart. A woman. Hopefully someone with a heart. Maybe I could befriend her, and then she might be my key to freedom.

Once again, the language being spoken is foreign. Although I now know what the language is, it doesn’t help me understand what’s being said. While Dima’s voice is low, hers is not. I don’t need to know what she’s saying to know she doesn’t sound happy.

The voices come closer.

“Get your hands off me,” he says in a warning tone, and I wonder if there’s someone else here besides the woman.

When I see her, I’m certain he was speaking to someone else. She’s gorgeous, and there’s no way he wouldn’t want her touching him. A pang of disappointment wells up in me as I wonder what their relationship is.

They walk through the door. The woman is a step in front of Dima and holding a large pot. From where I am, it looks like a rice cooker that needs to be plugged in somewhere. Maybe she’s his girlfriend and she brought us food?

Her eyes look me over from head to toe. She examines every inch of me, sizing me up, although I don’t know what for. Right now I feel like a specimen of cattle on the auction block at the state fair.

I stare back at her with the same intensity.
Her skin-tight jeans not only hug the curve of her ass but look painted on. Her low-cut shirt shows off more cleavage than someone so thin could have naturally. She’s striking. Beautiful. Her blonde hair hangs below her shoulders. Large grey eyes are the centerpiece of her face and highlight perfect, high cheekbones, a complete contrast from my brown eyes and rounded face.

Her mouth twists into a snarl and one eyebrow shoots up. With a nasty look on her face, the tall, super-model thin woman looks down her nose at me. I hate her. I know I’m judging a book by its cover, but the cover is ugly and reeks of an unjustified attitude.

“What the fuck is this?” she asks in a whiny voice, her accent contrasting with Dima’s perfect English. “She’s awake,” she says as if it’s a shock to her. “And why is her hand free?”

“It’s none of your fucking business. You’re here to do a job. Get it done,” he looms over her, a severe no-bullshit look on his face.

“Give her something to knock her out. She’s not supposed to be conscious.”

“You don’t give the orders around here. I told you to mind your business.”

“Fine. Then I’m leaving. I can’t work like this.” She shakes her head and turns.

He grabs her arm and stops her. “Where are you going?”

“You don’t understand English? Maybe I should say it in Russian?”

“Get to work,” he says with such authority, I doubt anyone in their right mind would argue with him.

She holds firm, “I have nowhere to set up.”

Dima leaves the room with the woman on his heels and comes back with an air mattress. He opens it and spreads it out on the floor. Once he plugs it into the wall and turns a dial on its side, I watch as it gets bigger and fills with air. While we wait for it to inflate, she plugs her pot into an outlet on the wall next to the mattress.

The woman keeps talking, yelling, whining — I’m not sure what to call it — at Dima, who doesn’t seem to be listening to her. She speaks fast and in a high-pitched voice, which sounds very much like a cat in pain. I don’t miss the dirty looks she throws at me. Nasty looks that would strike me dead if she had the power to do so.

“Get her down there and take her clothes off before you tie her up,” she orders, as if I’m not right there next to them.

“She doesn’t need to be tied up. She’ll cooperate,” he says, his eyes avoiding mine.

My stomach is in knots. What are they planning to do to me? Why do I need my clothes off? I tell myself not to panic. If he wanted to hurt or rape me, he didn’t need to wait until she got here. He had me all to himself. Unless he’s into some kinky shit, but no, this is a job
she
needs to do.

The yet unnamed woman steps toe to toe with him and stares him down. She shakes her head and goes off in Russian once again, pointing her finger in his face until he shoves it away.

“No!” Dima roars before leaving the room.

The woman turns her hateful stare on me and me alone. “I don’t know what they see in you. You’re nothing special. Look at you with that mousy brown hair. You’re nothing. Nothing at all.”

Her words shouldn’t bother me. I shouldn’t mind that she’s spewing hateful shit at me, but a small piece of me does, because if I’m nothing, I have no chance of surviving this.

Dima returns to the room with a folding chair. He sets it up against the wall opposite the air mattress. The bed is between us, and I don’t think he’ll be able to see much of me laying down on the air mattress if he’s in the chair.

“That doesn’t help me if she tries anything.”

“Kiera.” He bends down so we’re eye to eye and speaks in a harsh tone. “Masha is here to wax you. I’m going to untie you, and you will take off everything but your bra and underwear. If you try anything, and I mean anything, so help me, Sammy will be punished.”

My eyes tear at the mention of my brother. This man is using Sammy to control me once again. I nod. It’s not like I have a choice whether or not to agree to his terms.

Dima releases me from my bindings, but he does so without even looking at me. He’s a bit schizophrenic. When his friends or associates are around, he’s cold, distant. But when it’s just the two of us, like in the back of the van, or here before Masha arrived, he’s kind and compassionate. One of these personas is an act, but I’m not sure which one.

“Get undressed,” Masha orders, doing her best impression of a bitch.

My eyes drift to Dima. He’s looking at his phone. I might be crazy, but I think it’s meant to give me an iota of privacy.

“Are you stupid?” she asks in a raised voice. “I said get undressed.”

Wasn’t there a point, only minutes ago, that I had hope of making friends with this woman? She’s as cold and heartless as the other two men. I do as I’m told because the little I know about hot wax is that it hurts coming off. Or that it can burn and scald your skin if it’s too hot when applied. I’m not looking to give her an excuse to hurt me, not when I can’t fight back.

Once my clothes are off, she gathers them in her arms and tosses them out the door of the room. I’m not foolish enough to think she’s going to be kind and make sure they are freshly laundered. I just lost my clothes for good.

I lie on the mattress and try to calm my breathing. If I think clearly, it will help me find a way out of this mess, if there’s one to be found. Once I’m settled, she uses a wooden spoon to paint the wax onto my leg. It’s warm and calming. She then spoons some on the other leg. The warmth envelopes me. It feels good. I close my eyes and tell myself this isn’t so bad.

Her fingernails scratch me as she pries them under the wax, lifting it up just enough to get a good grip on it. Once she has, she proceeds to rip the wax off with one pull. I’m jarred by the pain. My college roommate gets her body waxed regularly. I’ve only ever had my lips and eyebrows done. They hurt enough, and this is a much larger surface area, although not as sensitive.

Again and again, Masha paints me with the hot wax, only to viciously rip it off me. She waxes me everywhere — my face, my legs, my arms, passing nasty little comments like, “disgusting,” or “who’d want to fuck that?” when we go from section to section. 

My skin smarts. I wouldn’t say I’m in terrible pain, but it’s sore and feels worked over. Every time I flinch or suck in a breath, she looks at Dima and smirks. She enjoys hurting me. She really is a bitch.

It seems like we’ve been at this all day, but I have no measure of time to judge from. No window to see the light or darkening of the sky. No television shows or sounds of the radio to hear of shows starting or ending. The world outside this small, cramped living quarter ceases to exist.

I think we’re done when she starts pulling my underwear down.

“No!” My voice rings out a little too loud as my hands reach down to stop her. My pulse quickens again and my face is filled with the heat of shame and embarrassment. I can’t let her do this. My eyes dart to the side. Even though I can’t see Dima, I know he’s there, and I can’t let him see me like this.

I’m answered with a dirty look. “Did you just say no to me?” She slaps my face on the same side the blond did in the van. I shriek out in pain and stare at her, stunned.

In a heartbeat, Dima is at our side. I’m not sure if he’s there to stop her from further hurting me or to make sure I don’t retaliate. Either way, I’m mortified. No guy has ever seen me with so little on, and this isn’t the way I wanted the first time to go. I turn my face away so I can spare myself the humiliation of looking at him or seeing him drink my almost naked body in.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” he warns. “Or I might have to treat you the same way.”

“If Ivan was here, would you speak to me like this?”

“You know I would. Talk to her. She’ll cooperate.”

“Why do you care? She’s nothing. No one. Or is she like a new toy you think you’re going to keep for yourself?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Fine. Then you won’t care when I tell Ivan he needs to send someone here to replace you.”

“Go ahead. Tell him,” he challenges, although his threatening stare is saying something very different. “I’ll make sure he knows that you think
you’re
the one in charge. That
you’re
entitled to make decisions and I had to stop you from marking up her face because
you’re
jealous. You don’t think he’s going to have a problem with that?”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Is it? You know he wants her looking her best so he can get top dollar. What do you think he’ll get if she’s bruised and beaten?”

She doesn’t answer, nor does she back down.

“Fuck this up and he’ll punish you,” he threatens. “I’ll sit back and enjoy the view from the front row seat I’ll have as I watch it happen.”

“Is that so?” she asks, running her pointer finger down his chest and licking her over-glossed lips. “Is that what you want to do the next time we fuck? Watch another man spank me? Do you want to watch me fuck him, too?”

He shoves her hand off him. “Just shut up and finish.” 

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she turns from him, gathers my underwear in the middle, and pulls it up, so that they are essentially no more than a G-string in the front and back.

“Hold this,” she orders me to keep them pulled taut, as if someone is giving me a front wedgie.

The bikini wax is brutal. Several times tears sting my eyes, but I don’t give in to them. I won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry. My tears can wait until I’m alone. Instead I focus on what I just heard.

They are together. She and Dima do have some sort of relationship.

It bothers me that I don’t know which revelation makes me sicker. The fact that they’re looking to get top dollar for me, which means they’re going to sell me off, or the fact that she’s involved with Dima. Yes, she’s beautiful, but she’s an evil bitch, and he seems so much more human than the rest of them.

The front of my body is thoroughly waxed. I swear I think she removed every hair follicle that’s not on my head. I assume we’re finished, there’s nowhere else to wax, but no. The witch yells at me to roll over onto my stomach so she can repeat the fun on my backside. Again she paints me with wax, starting with the back of my legs. She waxes me everywhere, including the crack of my ass.

My skin stings, but my pride and ego, they are what’s truly damaged, both from the humiliation of lying there and allowing her to do this as well as the degrading comments she passes as she does it. I understand she’s doing her best to make sure Dima keeps his distance from me, but knowing this doesn’t help, because I’m afraid he will.

Once we’re done, I fold my hands under my face like a little pillow and turn on my side, the side opposite where he is sitting. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want him to see that I’m a little more broken than I was before she walked through this door.

She gathers her stuff together and they leave the room. I hear them talking in raised voices. Of course they’re speaking in Russian, so I don’t know what they’re saying. I focus on the fact that I’m alone at last. I allow the tears to stream out of my eyes. If only they weren’t holding Sammy over my head. If I had a chance to fight back, I would’ve splashed the hot wax in her face.

I wipe the tears from my eyes with my fingertips, promising myself one thing. If I escape, I’m going to find this bitch and fuck her up.